Transformation
by asesina
Summary: This was just going to be a series of nerdy, fluffy moments with Chuck and Bryce at Stanford, but it ended up being a study on the transformative power of friendship.


Transformation by asesina

disclaimer: I don't own Chuck.

a/n: second Chuck fic! This one is a what-if fic set during Stanford. It primarily focuses on Bryce and Chuck's friendship. Bryce is a favorite of mine, even if he is a little misunderstood :).

I took some liberties with their college years, such as assuming that Bryce came from a privileged background with strict parents. I also tried to characterize him as a successful but dissatisfied person who longs for acceptance and friendship even though he has no problems fitting in with frats, etc.

I also theorized that Bryce doesn't like opening up to people, but Chuck's kindness and their shared interests made them become fast friends.

I hope that the characterization makes sense. I've only seen the full first season of Chuck, unfortunately, but I hope you enjoy it! 

-0-

Bryce Larkin had always been a confident man, understandably so.

He had many reasons to be confident: his intelligence, his athleticism, his _Stanford_ _scholarship,_ but one little thing had always pestered Bryce.

It ate away at him, gnawing on the fringes of his consciousness like a famished neural parasite.

Bryce Larkin was incapable of trusting people.

Sure, he was willing to flirt and wink, smile and schmooze, but it was almost always for face value.

He was very rarely able to expose any kind of vulnerability or genuineness to anyone, and that fact unnerved Bryce.

It unnerved Bryce because he couldn't explain it. He didn't even understand himself.

Bryce sifted through his subconscious on numerous occasions in an attempt to uncover some Freudian reasoning behind his inability to open up to people, but he always turned up empty handed.

In the end, Bryce begrudgingly concluded that he was afraid of getting hurt, although he'd never admit that to anyone, much less himself.

At Stanford, Bryce maintained several tenuous friendships with the other members of the track team, and he'd occasionally throw around a football with one of his dorm mates.

He'd wink at a girl or two in the quad or on the wide, open pathways that curved around the campus like Bernoulli's lemniscate.

They'd wink back, and he'd meet up with them later at a wild kegger in a dorm room down the hall.

For several weeks, Bryce Larkin went wild at Stanford.

He shed the restrictions placed on him by his parents and tutors, leaving behind his world of private school uniforms for the wild, untamed landscape of college.

In a way, he was just exchanging one mask for another.

Truth be told, Bryce actually _wasn't_ thatmuch of a partier. Sure, he enjoyed a game of beer pong, but he also liked being by himself.

His interests were broad and eclectic, ranging from football and girls to computer science and engineering.

However, Bryce hid parts of himself from his other dorm mates. He already had a reputation a Renaissance man, but his keen interest in Star Trek: TOS and his Klingon dictionary wouldn't exactly help that image.

Bryce wasn't ashamed of his computer prowess or knowledge of useless Star Trek trivia, but he had no one to share it with.

No one, that is, until he met Chuck Bartowski.

Bryce picked Chuck out of a crowd several weeks into his first semester at Stanford.

He saw Chuck reading a C++ textbook and was instantly intrigued.

Bryce tried to downplay his familiarity with computers, but Chuck just _had_ to mention Zork and text-based computer games.

Bryce's wide grin betrayed him as he recited a familiar line from the game,

"You are likely to be eaten by a Grue".

He tried his hardest to distrust Chuck, falling back on his old defense of building walls to shield himself from others.

Those walls crumbled like styrofoam when he and Chuck realized that they were both capable of creating a computer game from scratch.

The ensuing months were far more fun and easygoing than Bryce had ever anticipated.

He had planned on sailing through college, acing his exams, and graduating with honors before becoming a successful accountant.

However, Bryce's plans fizzled like smoke floating up from a summer barbecue as he started to become friends with Chuck and settle into a the languorous college lifestyle.

Bryce felt himself growing more comfortable, less uptight. He was still a dedicated student and athlete, but something in Chuck made him more willing to cut loose, unwind, and play games of Assassin in the school library.

Bryce noticed the change, and he grinned despite himself.

After a lifetime of studying and getting up at 6 am to run 4 miles in the rain, Bryce Larkin was finally learning how to relax.

Bryce had always liked things like Star Trek, Metroid, and Tron, but his parents rarely approved of them (when they were around, that is).

He knew that it was escapism, but he didn't care. Maybe he wanted to escape once in a while.

Bryce used to have a friend who loved Star Trek and Mario almost as much as he did, but they lost contact over the years.

He always liked to think that they would meet again, and that wish was fulfilled in a way when he met Chuck.

It wasn't just the C++ and Nintendo that brought Bryce and Chuck together.

It was the shared experiences: the insanely demanding professors, the fraternity pledging, the late-night barbecues and the girls who played Everquest with them.

It was the ramen noodles, the reheated pizza, and the fact that someone was willing to help him study and carry his books one second and kick his ass at Quake II the next.

Most of all, it was the unspoken things that really won Bryce over: the reassuring nods, the supportive hand on his shoulder, the stupid grins when they realized that someone else actually got that obscure video game reference.

Bryce Larkin had entered Stanford a driven, if slightly obsessive student, and here he was, playing games on an computer that was almost as old as he was.

Bryce surprised himself when he realized that he didn't care.

His myriad achievements and scholarships spoke for themselves, but they didn't have to define him.

That first year was punctuated by Star Trek marathons and programming sessions that went long into the night.

The other fraternity brothers would occasionally give them grief about it, but Bryce didn't care any more.

"To hell with 'em," he'd mutter in Klingon, although there was no direct translation for the phrase.

Chuck would grin back at him, eyes lighting up as he recognized the familiar alien language and tried to keep from laughing when the fraternity brothers rolled their eyes and guffawed at their nerdiness.

In another life, Bryce would've shoved his worn-out Star Trek VHS tapes under the bed, but here, he was able to stack them proudly next to his track, football, and gymnastics trophies.

Here, he was able to laugh, lounge back, and drink flat soda with a guy who _didn't _think that knowing the meaning of _Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam _was bizarre.

Here, he was home.

End.

Note: the Klingon is from a website and it means "Today is a good day to die."

Let me know what you thought! I hope it wasn't too rushed, cheesy, etc,


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